Measures of Strength
by Hickumu
Summary: The war against Neo Umbrella continues. Jake and Sherry have partnered up to help fight it together, running missions for the good guys to take down the bad. Unfortunately, one mission goes very, very wrong. Cut off from help thanks to a looming storm and and set upon by J'avo, Jake and Sherry are left for dead in a ditch on the side of the road. Sherry has to drag Jake to safety.


_So, Sherry being badass and saving Jake is something of a minor kink of mine. And I realized that even if Sherry isn't as strong as Jake, or as powerful, she has one big advantage, and that's her healing. If you leave her there and don't finish her off, she'll eventually put herself together. For all that Jake hits like a truck, he doesn't have that advantage if you hit him where it hurts._

_Some circumstances had to be tweaked to make this happen. But hopefully, it's still realistic. The medical research was fun - if nothing else, I learned a little more about a few more interesting injuries._

_Written for H/C bingo on Dreamwidth, prompt "head injuries"._

* * *

Jake was not doing well.

Sherry couldn't heal very quickly, but she would, inevitably, always heal from whatever damage was inflicted on her. Their attackers apparently hadn't known that when they'd left her and Jake for dead in a ditch. So when Sherry had finally regained consciousness at the bottom of the ditch, it had been to the disconcerting sound of her skull knitting itself back together, and the feeling of the excess buildup of blood draining from her brain.

Jake was tough. Jake had endured a lot of pain in his life. But Jake couldn't just put himself back together after getting bashed in the head with a length of lead pipe. And as Sherry looked up and saw him, collapsed and motionless a few feet away, she felt the bottom drop out of the world.

"Jake!" she gasped, hurrying to him. Her movements were still unsteady, her body feeling weak after recovering from its most recent ordeal. She knew, however, that she would be okay.

As she drew near to Jake, she saw the back of his head shining in the moonlight with dark red blood. He looked like he'd passed out trying to stem the bleeding, but it hadn't done any good. For a fearful few seconds, Sherry couldn't even tell if he was still breathing.

"Jake, come on! Wake up!" She was almost pleading with him as she shook his shoulder with one hand, and checked his pulse with the other. It was enough to prove that he was alive – his pulse was erratic, and his skin was clammy, but Jake was still alive. Eventually, after much too long, he stirred, murmuring something unintelligible, and tried to bat her hand away.

"The hell…" Jake tried with shaking hands to push himself into a sitting position. Sherry tried to support him, but her mere touch caused him to flinch in alarm, and try weakly to shove her off again. Sherry realized with a lurching feeling that he didn't recognize her.

"It's okay! It's me! It's Sherry!" she insisted, moving around to kneel in front of him. Jake tried to look up at her, enough for her to see that his gaze was hazy. No matter how much he obviously tried, he couldn't seem to focus on her.

Her voice, at least, seemed to be enough to reach him through the haze.

"…Sherry?" he ventured, almost hesitantly.

"Yes! Oh god, Jake, you're bleeding."

"No kidding? Hadn't noticed." His voice was weak, his words slurred. Jake pressed a hand to the wound on the back of his head, and immediately winced, pulling away with blood on his fingertips. "Yeah. They got me good. What about you?"

"Me, too. But I guess they decided we were okay to leave. And, well…" Sherry shrugged, her words failing her. It didn't seem fair, that she could have recovered so neatly while Jake had been left a wreck. "…I'm okay now."

"Glad to hear it, super girl." He smiled wanly at her, before pain apparently washed through him in a fresh wave. Jake closed his eyes, clenching his teeth against any sign of pain. Sherry saw it anyway, and couldn't stop herself. She reached out and took his hand, squeezing tightly. This time, at least, he didn't flinch.

"We'll be okay. We just have to get out of here. It's not far to the rendezvous point. Can you walk?"

"Sure." Then, with a supreme effort of will, Jake went to work struggling to his feet. He even managed a few staggering steps in the wrong direction, but Sherry knew he was worse than she'd feared even before Jake collapsed back onto his hands and knees to be sick.

Jake could not remember ever feeling quite this awful before.

It made no sense. He'd faced off against hundreds of soldiers, and killed most of them for the trouble. He'd fought J'avo, B.O.W's, Ustanak. He'd been blown up and left adrift in all sorts of hostile environments.

Was it really just a matter of some bastard getting in a lucky shot or six to the back of his head?

The worst feeling was the total lack of control. Nothing in his body was working right. His vision was blurred, his ears were ringing, and he couldn't take two steps without falling over like a sick dog and having his guts empty themselves out all over the ground as some kind of sick punishment.

What scared Jake worse was what was happening to his head, though. He didn't remember. He didn't remember how they'd gotten here, or how they'd been attacked.

For a minute after waking up, he hadn't recognized Sherry.

But he did recognize her presence beside him now, and her hand on his back. Jake was torn between wanting to shove her away again and being grateful that she was here. On the one hand, he didn't want anyone to see him like this, not even her. It made it harder to ignore how bad off he was, and it was harder not to worry when someone else was so obviously worried about him.

On the other hand, Sherry was a good partner. If she was with him, maybe he had a chance of making it out of this. She wouldn't leave him, just because he was dead weight…

_…would she? _

Sherry resolved his brief moment of confusion by drawing one of his arms across her shoulders. With a great effort, she managed to stand upright and drag him with her. "Come on, Jake. I've got you. Just try to walk with me."

Jake tried to make some comment about how impossible her plan was, but somehow, it just seemed like too much work. His tongue seemed to have decided to go on strike along with the rest of him. He just focused everything he had left on staying upright and not leaning too much on Sherry.

Sherry, in turn, gritted her teeth and tried to get them moving. Jake had a foot on her in height and nearly fifty pounds in weight, but she took the lead and he just tried to stumble along. They were stumbling along the bottom of a ditch, but climbing out was an ordeal that Jake didn't want to even contemplate. He'd probably just wind up collapsed in a heap again.

"We'll be okay." Sherry was out of breath with the effort of carrying him, but obviously trying to put on a good front, for him and for herself. "I'll make sure of it. It's not far. Even if they've left by now, the power should still be on. We can call for help."

Right. There was no signal out here. The storm blowing in meant that the walkie-talkies were useless. Jake dimly remembered them coming to that grim realization as they bugged out after the mission. He dimly remembered Sherry saying much the same thing she was saying now. That all they had to do was make good time back to the rendezvous. That their job was over, and all they had to worry about was getting out.

Sherry was still so impossibly naïve sometimes. Not that Jake blamed her. One of them should have seen the J'avo coming out of nowhere, and neither of them had. Not even him.

It was the sort of slip-up he should have died for. Sherry would have been well within her rights to leave him for dead and carry on, especially since she could carry on. But Sherry was still just so impossibly _good_ that, even if she should have, even if he knew he should have told her to, Jake would have been surprised if she had.

It was with this last, strangely comforting thought that he slid out of consciousness again.

Sherry mentally kicked herself. When had Jake passed out? She'd been so focused on just moving forward that she hadn't noticed.

"Jake, wake up. You've got to wake up." She tried to shake him as well as she could without dropping him, and tried not to panic. If he didn't wake up soon, he'd probably never wake up again. "Jake, _please!_ We're almost there."

All she had to do was get them out of this ditch. Then a mad dash through the dark to their base, where they just had to hope they'd be spotted by friends before they were caught by foes once more.

All she had to do was get them out of this ditch. But Jake wasn't responding, and it was getting harder to drag him by the second. Sherry stared up the five foot slope it would take them to clamber out as though it were Mount Everest.

Then she clenched her teeth and set to work. She didn't have a choice, and fear was an excellent motivator. She had some rope, from the mission, and let Jake slump against the bank long enough to tie one end tightly around his waist, and one end around hers'. Then she heaved him upright again, reaching up to grab a trailing root and trying to dig her toes into the wet mud of the incline. Jake was heavy, especially as deadweight, and Sherry wasn't particularly strong. It was hard, slow going, especially taking care not to let one or both of them go falling over again.

"We'll make it. I know we will," Sherry said through gritted teeth. "We'll make it, Jake. You'll be okay."

There was a desperate moment where, just as she was heaving herself up and over the edge, Sherry lost control. She felt Jake sliding, felt herself sliding, knew that she couldn't get enough of a grip to stop the fall…but then Jake's hand lashed out, grabbing ahold of some scrub brush that was miraculously rooted deep enough to hold.

Sherry felt her heart soar with gratitude just to see him moving, but she didn't say anything. Instead, working together, they finally heaved themselves up and over the edge of the ditch, onto the side of the road.

The road was still empty. Thunder rolled and roiled overhead, lightning flashing in between the hanging black clouds. Up ahead, maybe half a mile, Sherry could see lights – their base, with their people, and medical care.

Desperate with how close they were, Sherry grabbed for her walkie talkie and flipped it on. "Hello?! Hello, this is Agent Sherry Birkin! Someone, answer!"

Nothing but static. Growling in frustration, Sherry checked her phone – still no signal. Still so close, and yet so far.

A weak, pained moan from Jake got her attention. "Come on, Jake," Sherry said, kneeling down next to him to try and help him up once more. There was still so much blood, on the back of his head, down his neck, his hands. She swallowed back nausea at the sight. "We're almost there! We can make it!"

Jake suddenly shoved her hard with his shoulder – it was surprise, more than anything, that made Sherry fall back with a startled yelp. At first, she thought he was just being sick again. But when she looked up, it was to see Jake staring back at her in utter incomprehension.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice unsteady and weak. "The hell is going on?"

Sherry stared back at him helplessly, stunned to the point of being speechless. Finally, a word forced itself to the front of her mind.

_Amnesia?_

Sherry thought she would have laughed, if the situation wasn't suddenly so dire. Resisting the urge to break down and cry was a little harder. Amnesia. After everything they'd gone through to get this far…

"I'm here to help you," she heard herself say. "I'm…I'm a friend. Some people attacked you. But the base down the road has people who will help you."

She reached out to him. Confused and hurt, Jake flinched away from her. "Don't touch me," he growled, as any animal in pain might growl.

Sherry sucked in her breath sharply, at that – the sudden pang of hopelessness hurt worse than the rejection. It wasn't his fault, after all. He was too disoriented to remember anything except that he was in pain and someone must have done it to him, and she was the only person nearby. He probably didn't even notice they were still tied together. At least he was probably in no shape to undo the knot, thank god for small mercies.

Sherry wondered wildly if she really would have to leave him. Just to go and get help. After all, she knew she could move quickly if she had to. She'd bring help right back to him.

She should leave him. It might be her best chance to save him. But even as Sherry tried to will herself to stand and turn away, she felt like she was betraying him. He was her partner. To leave him here was…antithetical to the very idea of everything they'd done for one another so far.

She couldn't do it. He was going to die because he couldn't remember her enough to let her help him, and she couldn't leave him long enough to save him.

"God." She laughed because it was better than crying. "Some super girl I am, huh?"

It turned out to be just the right thing to say. The nickname – his nickname for her – seemed to nag at something in his malfunctioning mind. He looked almost…surprised, for a second, some of the tension and readiness to attack leaving him. She could almost see him trying to remember.

He didn't, in the end. But when she reached out a hand to him once more, he took it, and let her help him up and draw an arm around her shoulders. He leaned on her while making a valiant effort to walk – if nothing else, the need to move and get help and _survive_ was the only thing he had, right now, and he threw himself into it with everything they had left.

He trusted her once more to help him, at least, if only subconsciously, and so Sherry supported him every step of the way.

Everything after they stepped into the beams of the floodlights at the walls was something of a blur. Announcing themselves, presenting identification, handing Jake off to some guards and trying to follow him to the infirmary but being stopped, because they were desperate for a report. Numb and tired and exhausted, Sherry gave it. Later on, she'd remember how impassive she sounded when describing the J'avo that had descended on them at the end, as though the attack had happened to someone else.

Sherry passed the remainder of the night without sleep, pacing worriedly, waiting. She wasn't allowed to visit, but she heard reports. Treatment took hours, and he was out for a few hours more. When he woke up, he was still disoriented and amnesiac, but that passed slowly but blessedly surely, and reassured them all that whatever damage had been done wouldn't prove permanently debilitating.

She finally lost patience and sneaked into the ward to see him late at night, two days after their return.

She saw that Jake was awake, as she crept towards his room. She also saw that he had somehow had acquired, of all things, a bouncy ball, and was bouncing it against windows, walls, ceiling, and floor, probably more from boredom than from any lingering loss of motor control. Sherry stepped into his room just in time for the ball to be tossed her way, before Jake had even properly registered her presence. She caught it, after some fumbling. "Hey."

"Hey." He smiled at the sight of her. "What'd you bring me?"

"Just me. That's more than you almost got. I am taking a risk just by visiting you, after all. You're supposed to be on strict bed rest." She tossed the ball back to him anyway.

"Yeah, yeah." He caught it neatly. "I guess I have had a hard day of tossing this thing around. But they gave me a gold star for basic motor skills." He tossed the ball back to her, and she caught it. Sherry could only imagine how bored Jake must be to be seizing on a game of catch as entertainment.

She played with him anyway. "How are you feeling?" she asked. "Really?"

"All systems go. Makin' memories, writing my own name, remembering what day it is. I can even walk." He rolled his eyes skyward in an unspoken gesture that nevertheless conveyed his disdain for doctors and basic medical checks.

"…how much do you remember? About what happened?"

"Not a lot. Just some…'islands of memory'. That's what they called it. I remember…not remembering you." He frowned, pensive for a moment, before he shook it off. Then he winced, his fingers going to his head for a moment. "Creepy."

"But you're okay?" she pressed him.

"I will be. Thanks to you. I knew you were tough, Sherry, but dragging me half a mile? Not too shabby."

She grinned sheepishly, ducking her head in embarrassment even as she caught the little bouncy ball. "What else could I do? We're partners. I wasn't going to leave you."

Maybe she tossed it a little too wide, or he was just a little too distracted by the pain in his head, but Jake missed the catch that time. He fumbled, he tried to save it, but eventually it slipped out of his hands and went bouncing on the floor on the other side of the bed.

It was a simple, easy little mistake, but it left them both quiet and scared and saying nothing for several seconds, until Sherry forced herself to stand up and go retrieve it.

Jake wouldn't look at her, but he took it back when she offered it. "Thanks, super girl."

She didn't pull her hand away right away. Instead, she squeezed his lightly, in a helpless gesture of comfort. She could feel his fingers shaking finely as she did so – less than he had been that night, but worse than he had been before they were attacked.

He would be okay. He was still recovering. But it was a sobering thought, to realize that he still had a little ways to go, and there was still some damage there that wasn't so obvious, and some scars that wouldn't heal.

"You're welcome," she said. Then, forcing a smile, she returned to her seat. Even if she wished she could have done more for him, that didn't change the fact that she would always be there for him. Because they were partners, and friends, and he always had her back. The least she could do was have his.

But Jake would be okay, mostly because he wouldn't let himself be any other way, and neither would Sherry. The fact that he tossed the ball back to her in a quick trick shot conveyed that fact perfectly. It bounced lightly off her head, but she caught it on the rebound. Whatever it took to get back on his feet, Jake wouldn't give up until he was.

"Bring me some flowers or something next time you visit. I'm a sick guy, after all. It's traditional."

"I didn't know you liked flowers."

"I don't. I like being given stuff. What the hell's the point of winding up in the hospital if you don't get free stuff?"

And absolutely nothing could shut him up. Somehow, that was the biggest relief of all.


End file.
